It’s not often that a sample clearance claim against a record company turns out to be an altogether pleasant experience. Usually it’s a blustery, puffy-chested affair with lawyers on both sides citing arcane copyright cases and threatening court proceedings as if the year were 1987 and Biz Markie had just released his first album on Cold Chillin.’

We’ve been fortunate enough to never have to deal with any of that, as our attorney is the kind of woman who teaches copyright legends about the outcome of the most recent Koons case and its application to sampling before they even know about it. As a result, we have gained access into the superb Raymond Scott catalog through our association with Basta Audio Visuals and Scott’s musical steward Irwin Chusid. And, more recently, we inked a deal with singer, songwriter, pianist and man-in-the-know Matthew Larkin Cassell.

MLC hit us up after he heard his “Heaven,” from his superb (and superbly rare) album Pieces on the Madlib production “3.214” from Madvillainy 2: The Madlib Remix. At first Madlib had no idea he was using MLC’s work until he put two and two together and realized that his source material, a Japanese bootleg 12” labled “MLC” stood for, well, you guessed it.

Who wouldn’t want access to the multi-tracks to MLC’s break-beat laded “My Life?” Madlib certainly did. And MLC wanted to see his entire catalog (comprised of the Pieces album, an EP entitled Matt The Cat, a 7” single and a recent vinyl EP) issued on CD and distributed digitally. So, I flew to the Bay Area, hung out with the man and committed his story to tape. Even though our lawyer has been amazing with our other sample claims, Matthew and I decided early on to keep this conversation among friends so we got down to negotiations. Five months later, here we are. We’re officially announcing the soon-to-be-released Matthew Larkin Cassell The Complete Works and hinting that we might do something special with those multis. With MLC’s permission of course.